Silence and Sound
by Lyaka
Summary: They don't go out of their way to keep it a secret. It's just that, somehow, no one knows. Mystrade.


They meet by the side of a particularly nasty triple homicide. Lestrade is there because he picked up the phone when the call came in, and that makes it _his_ nasty triple homicide. So he's standing outside in the rain and cold of a London winter while Anderson and his band of merry men swarm over the scene, wishing it was concordant with the regulations to wait back at the Yard or, failing that, in the car. Mycroft Holmes is there because one of the dead men worked for the government, in a capacity he's not prepared to discuss, though he does kindly inform Lestrade of the fourth body hidden behind the skip two blocks over. Thanks to the tip, Greg closes the case in two weeks instead of four. Then he wishes he'd taken his time, because with the murderer behind bars Mycroft has no reason to hang around the Yard at all hours of the night.

Fortunately, Mycroft has never been beholden to other people's reasons. He produces a truly terrifying backlog of Most Secret cold case files and has Greg cleared to read them in what must be record time. Naturally, this necessitates a very close working relationship with Mycroft's still-ill-defined office or bureau or whatever it is he has. The other DIs at the Yard smile in the caf and thank their lucky stars that they didn't pull Government Babysitting Duty. There's no one else at Mycroft's level to think anything at all.

* * *

Mycroft's schedule and habits are always dictated by the latest crisis. It's impossible to predict what 'normal' means for him, and that assumes that an observer would have the means or motive to try, an eventuality Mycroft assiduously dissuades with the aid of a few well-trained assistants and a staff like an army. Even Anthea can't distinguish between a dinner with the Prime Minister and a dinner with the Detective Inspector until the car pulls up to the restaurant and she sees who's waiting under the awning. She knows her superior has smiled upon this man, that he is Mycroft's officer of choice when the situation merits A Public Resolution and Going Through Channels and Involving The Authorities. She suspects that, on some of the nights when Lestrade does paperwork with Mycroft at the residence he's now cleared to enter, the DI doesn't go home afterwards. But Mycroft values her discretion as highly as her loyalty, and she willfully leaves the pieces scattered, turning her eyes away.

Scotland Yard is a harsh mistress; like most police officers, Greg has no real life outside of work, no time to meet his mates at the pub or watch the football game of a weekend. Not that it would matter if he did, because he doesn't _have_ any mates outside of work. His childhood friends are back in Sussex with his ex-wife and the girls, and his colleagues are just as busy as he is. There's no one to notice that Greg doesn't go to the pub even once or twice a month anymore, or that he is spending fewer and fewer nights in his own bed. No one notices the slow progression of his possessions out of his flat, a box of clothes here, an armful of books there. The Yard frowns upon too much gossip on the job, they're supposed to be professionals, so somehow it never comes up in casual conversation when Greg lets the lease on his flat lapse entirely and packs up the last few items on a rainy Sunday in May, marveling at how few boxes it takes after all. Mycroft helps him carry the books and shares his umbrella with Greg so neither of them get wet.

* * *

Walking into the office the day after N. takes M. for better or worse, Lestrade wears the ring openly on the third finger of his left hand, but there's been another in the string of serial suicides and there's no time for anyone to comment. Later, if he had thought of it, he'd have been surprised that no one asked or offered congratulations. But his relationship with Mycroft is like air or gravity; it never occurs to him that it's not equally obvious and inevitable to everyone around him. Everyone comes up with their own explanations without Lestrade's input. Some of his colleagues assume he's wearing the ring as a subterfuge, a way for a man married to his work to discourage unwanted advances. Or else to present a respectable, solid front to nervous witnesses, who like to make comforting assumptions about the copper asking those impertinent questions. Or even to present that same front to his superiors, as Lestrade puts in his years and starts thinking about making DCI.

Some of the more perceptive look at the pictures of his daughters, still displayed in his office, and assume that the ring goes with the smiling woman in the background of some of those snaps. And Greg does talk more about his daughters lately; Myra's company recently got bought, her office relocated to London, and now Greg sees the girls on weekends and at the occasional school play when work's not got him chained to the desk. Greg knows Mycroft arranged the merger as a wedding present, but the Yard could be forgiven for thinking that he and his ex-wife have reconciled. As for Myra, she never asks about his personal life, and he never asks about hers. They don't talk much, anymore.

Sherlock, of course, smirks and nods and makes a joke about two overprotective brothers being worse than one. But since he does it in the middle of a crime scene there's no one else around; the forensic techs were ordered out two minutes ago, and Anderson was finally ejected thirty seconds later, still shouting uncomplimentary and highly improbable suggestions for Sherlock's leisure hours. John knows what Sherlock knows, but he's set himself a lifelong mission of trying to restrain Sherlock's worst excesses, the poor sod, and somehow that always keeps him too busy to get beyond "Hello again" and "How d'ye do" before he has to go haring off after the great detective. Greg doesn't mind; they catch up between times at Baker Street, where Greg has fallen into the habit of dropping by on nights when he's free and Mycroft is finessing Parliament again.

* * *

Greg grows a little older, and Mycroft grows a little thicker round the middle. Sherlock and John finally come to the mutual realization that _Why don't you buy the milk for a change _and _If inconvenient, come anyway _are really just secret code for _I can't get enough of you_ and finally fulfill Sherlock's long-held dream of turning their second bedroom into a laboratory. The installation of an extra refrigerator in said laboratory, in turn, fulfils John's longing to reach in for milk and find _milk_ instead of thumbs or feet or something equally disgusting. Mrs Hudson is just glad that her boys are finally, blissfully happy, and that Sherlock's found something to do with his leisure hours that doesn't involve explosions or acid or shooting up the flat. Greg teases them both for a month and Mycroft upgrades John's whole wardrobe while they're on holiday in the south of France. When they get back Greg looks at John, sharp in a new jumper and slacks, and thinks of his own daughters. His oldest is in high school now, and it won't be too much longer before someone comes along and scoops her away. He hopes, when the time comes, it's someone like John or Mycroft, and resolves never to let her meet anyone like Anderson. Sally might be all right. She's mellowed over the years.

* * *

The assumptions and silence fall apart one night, cold and rainy in the heart of winter, just like the night Greg Lestrade and Mycroft Holmes met over mortal remains. There's a gang war on, of all things, and it's leaving corpses scattered on the streets of London like beads from a broken necklace. Lestrade is standing outside again, thinking that the next time there's an opening at the DCI level he's got a good chance at it and that will let him finally wait back at the Yard when a case like this comes in. Anderson has moved on to bigger and more Sherlock-free things, so it's Sutherland barking orders at a team of blue-clad figures, age and genders blurred by the all-concealing coveralls. Sally is organizing the uniforms going door-to-door. She's had a harder time getting promotion than she should, even being both a woman and a minority. He suspects her old intolerance of Sherlock is an ugly note in her jacket, but it's been years since the two of them felt any serious animosity; the insults are more for form's sake, because it's the only way they've ever spoken, the only way they know how to interact. _Freak_ is just another nickname to Sherlock these days. Even John doesn't blink an eye at it anymore.

Lestrade is planning ways to take Sally with him when he makes DCI. Someone will have to take over his old unit anyway and by courtesy he gets to pick his right-hand woman. Of course the expectation is he'll pick the senior most DI, or possibly someone he went through the academy with, but Sally deserves the bump and he doesn't want to break in anyone new at this point anyway. Certainly not when Sherlock was factored into the equation…

Gunshots. Three of them split the night, and then suddenly the air erupts with a cacophony of shouts, out loud, over the radio, static and sirens and screams. Greg is running towards the building, gun in hand, before his conscious mind even has time to kick in and process the situation. Sally's right behind him, and he can hear the ambulance wailing in the distance. Her eyes are on him as he gestures. At his signal she covers the room when he kicks open the door.

He feels the first bullet as a blow to the shoulder, pushing him back and spinning him slightly. The second bullet is a line of red fire across his ribs. Then he feels nothing at all.

* * *

Mycroft is stuck in the worst kind of meeting, and it's been going on for far too long. There's an agenda for the evening and work that is nominally being accomplished, but in practice the purpose of the gathering is for the other men at the table to have their egos expertly stroked by the man who holds real power. Each of them has to be carefully petted and flattered into believing themselves indispensible. It's a necessary evil, but not one Mycroft has to like. In his younger years, he read _The Secret Adversary_ and thought rather fondly of Mr. Brown's vision of unfettered power. But a criminal empire could never be organized or stable enough to deploy CCTV, or build a navy, or produce the atom bomb. So he smiles and soothes and shakes hands until the last lord has left and he can retreat back to his quiet office. Just a little more paperwork to be done and he can be out rather early tonight; the near side of moonrise, even.

Anthea's waiting for him outside in the conference room and murmurs a stream of rapid updates as they walk down the hallway. She mentions the reports of a police-involved shooting in Marbury Mews in the same breath as the latest financial forecast for MI6 and a report from one of his more deeply placed operatives. The shooting's left one officer dead, three in hospital, two critical; it's a bad one, but Mycroft doesn't need to say anything. Anthea will already have had it shunted to Lestrade's desk, if it wasn't there already. The thought that Gregory might be fighting for his life in a surgical room at St Bart's never crosses his mind, because if it were so, he would know about it. Mycroft Holmes has eyes and ears all over London, a surveillance system that never sleeps. What he does not consider is that Anthea cannot tell him about a report that doesn't exist, and no one manning the CCTV cameras has the slightest idea that Mycroft would care about one particular DI over another. He does not consider that no one at the Yard knows to call him in an emergency.

Ironically, it's Sherlock who realizes it first. Sally calls him, as soon as they've dug the bullet out of her arm, swathed it in bandages and given her pills she won't take. He's the closest thing to Lestrade's family she can think of outside the Yard. Sherlock comes running with John, though he knows he can't do anything, medicine isn't his speciality, and though it _is_ John's area he's not a trauma surgeon, no matter how many scrapes and bruises and acid burns he's doctored for their cases over the years. Sherlock comes because he wants to know what happened, which Sally can tell him, and what Greg's chances are, which he assumes Mycroft will know. It's only after he gets to the hospital and asks for his brother that the penny starts to drop. Sally tells him impatiently that no, his brother isn't here, but only after Sherlock has to explain to her who Mycroft is, because she honestly hadn't known that the posh civil servant is related to the brilliant consulting detective, and even once she learns it she still doesn't understand why Sherlock would have expected Mycroft to be here before him or even really at all. And that's when Sherlock turns away, phone appearing instantly in his hand, and speed-dials the number his brother gave him to use only when the world is about to end.

Once Mycroft gets the news, thoughts of secrecy are the farthest thing from his mind, but his reaction is so swift and his reach is so long that those caught up in events at first don't realize that it's a man and not an act of God behind the whirlwind. England's most prominent specialist in gunshot trauma shows up in the operating room unannounced, seven hours into Greg's surgery, scrubs in and takes over. Complete medical records for Gregory Lestrade appear in the hospital's system between one button press and the next. The blood bank, which had previously been more a little short on O negative, receives an unexpected midnight delivery. The hospital's staffing roster is mysteriously reworked to place the most skilled doctors and nurses on staff at what John assures Mycroft are the most significant times.

On the law enforcement front, things move even faster. The Commissioner of Police is being hurried into a black limousine, only half-dressed, mere minutes after being awoken by the shrill ring of his telephone. He arrives at New Scotland Yard expecting to head up a task force and oversee a manhunt, but is confounded by the sight of four ashen-faced perpetrators under double guard in a holding cell. An impeccably suited young man, one of Mycroft's most promising subordinates, is standing in the anteroom with the Director of Public Prosecutions, the Attorney General, a public defender, and a stack of papers requiring his signature. The legal proceedings fly faster than he can follow. Before he knows it, the perpetrators are being taken to a more permanent facility and an obscenely early trial date had been set. The serious young man loads the Commissioner into another limousine, explaining that he'll need to go to the morgue next; some of the perpetrators were so unfortunate as to resist arrest. After that it all becomes a blur. He signs his name when he's asked to and nods when people speak. He's been considering retirement on and off for years. Perhaps now is the time.

At the hospital, more specialists arrive, flown in from farther away. Greg comes out of surgery after fourteen grueling hours, during which time Mycroft took over one of the hospital's meeting rooms as his headquarters. With Anthea texting orders at the speed of light, Mycroft has filled the time arranging for everything that could possibly squeeze another tenth of a percentage point out of Gregory's chances for survival, from a room with an eastern exposure to flowers positively correlated with recovery in double-blind studies. When a doctor finally knocks on the door to tell them Greg is out of surgery and still alive, he collapses into a chair. For the first time in his life, Mycroft Holmes is unable to think.

* * *

Getting off the table alive is not the end, but Greg is a stubborn man and he keeps right on fighting. As the days go by, Anthea tracks his recovery by the number of lines on Mycroft's face. When they take off the ventilator and Greg starts breathing on his own, Mycroft smiles. It's the most heartbreakingly emotional response Anthea has ever seen out of him.

When Greg leaves the ICU, Mycroft relocates from the conference room on the third floor to the room adjoining Greg's, which undergoes a miraculous transformation from a place of medical care to a command center suitable for the most powerful man in Britain to run the government remotely. Sherlock and John drop by often, but even Sherlock can tell that this isn't the time for pointed commentary on the relative advantages of caring. Instead, he devotes himself to Lestrade's abandoned caseload with a single-minded dedication, and in doing so keeps Sally too busy to indulge in guilt and depression. No one really thinks it's her fault Greg got shot, but only Sherlock is capable of repeating it loudly, bluntly, and frequently enough to get her to believe it too. John takes Mycroft on as a personal project, making sure he eats and sleeps and even takes some exercise. Anthea is grateful enough to reward these efforts by remembering John's existence from one visit to the next.

By the time Greg is well enough to come home, DCI Summers has taken early retirement and gone to live in the nice quaint little cottage out in Surrey he's always wanted. It's been modernized on the inside by a grateful government, and he spends his days happily gardening and seeing his grandkids. The newly minted DCI Lestrade gets a round of applause from the entire department the first day he's back on the job, and DI Donovan brings him coffee every morning for the first six months and watches him like a hawk to make sure he's not slacking off on his physical therapy. Greg laughs and entertains her with suitably edited stories of the bevy of specialists Mycroft has had dancing to his tune the entire time Lestrade has been convalescent. John expresses his relief quietly but sincerely; Sherlock can find no better way to convey his appreciation than a twenty-minute-long rant about the incomparable stupidity of every other officer in the employ of the Yard, including an itemized list of faults and no fewer than eight appendices, provided in electronic form. Mycroft is just happy to get Greg into the relative safety of a desk job. He's not quite sure he thinks DCI is enough; he's wondering how long he has to wait before he gets Gregory made a superintendant.

Before Mycroft even lets Greg go back to work, though, the two of them embark on a continental tour, finally taking the honeymoon they never made time for. Mycroft likes to watch Greg sleeping; the older man needs more rest now than he used to, still building back his reserves of strength, and Mycroft has never needed as much as a normal man. He used to sit in an armchair or upright in bed, reading a book or, more often, a report. These days he puts the report aside, holds Greg close, and listens to his heart beating.

* * *

They are both surprised to learn that their relationship was considered a secret before, but it's out now to everyone they know, and they take care to make it obvious to anyone else who takes a look. Mycroft is still secretive by nature and Greg is still devoted to his work. But being together is something they're sure of. Neither of them ever want there to be a next time, but even Mycroft can't control everything, and the shiny pink scars Greg will always have are a daily reminder of that fact. So instead they focus on each other, building and planning and dreaming in defiance of fate. The years will pass and many things will change. But no one will have a reason to wonder about them again.


End file.
